


Pick Who Dies

by Thunderrrstruck



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Guns, Hurt No Comfort, I may continue this one later, Non-Graphic Violence, Whump, Whumptober 2020, oh boy do I feel evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderrrstruck/pseuds/Thunderrrstruck
Summary: "He hears the clicking of a gun’s safety, and then he feels it: the smooth yet definitive edge of a gun against his temple. 'Pick, or your brains’ll end up on the wall.'"
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Whumptober





	Pick Who Dies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 2 of Whumptober2020.

“Pick who dies,” growls a rough voice from behind. Just as the question ‘where–’ forms in his head, the literal wool is lifted from his eyes, and Tony is left sputtering out bits of itchy cloth from his mouth. He hears the clicking of a gun’s safety, and then he feels it: the smooth yet definitive edge of a gun against his temple. “Pick, or your brains’ll end up on the wall.” **  
**

Tony sluggishly turns his head to the left, eyeing the wall of cinder blocks. Somehow, the bricks’ unassuming and drab grey glares at him with malice.

Tony closes his eyes to settle his heart and maybe clear his brain.

_A plan, I need a plan_.

The barrel of the gun digs deeper into his head. He jolts out of any constructive thought. His wrists pull forward and cut into their shackles. The gun trails down the side of his neck and positions itself neatly on crook of his shoulder. Two images fizzle to life before him– no, not images. Videos. Live feeds. Darkness settles over his heart. The feeds depict two people. On the left, Tony sees Pepper shuffling together paperwork at her desk in SI. His heart warms at the sight, while his face drains of colour. On the right, he spies Rhodey hunching over the War Machine armour, and Tony can tell he is installing the wrong updates, the updates they had bickered over. _What use is a stronger blaster right now when he had the retro-reflective tech at the ready?_ he had argued. Tony was supposed to be there, ensuring his best friend didn’t stubbornly persist his own armour agenda.

_‘Who here specialised in mechanical engineering?’_ Tony had asked rhetorically. _‘I’ll give you a hint, he's standing right here.’_

_‘Who here watched you almost flunk out of physics because you forgot to sleep for a week?’_ Rhodey shot right back. _‘It’s my armour, I should decide.’_

_‘I made it for you,’_ replied Tony.

_‘Yeah, thanks for that.’_

The argument seemed absolutely pointless now.

Every so often, Rhodey would lift his head as if checking for Tony’s presence.

So as not to see the feeds anymore, Tony hangs his head, but he isn’t given the time to come to terms with his shortened reality before a hand is on his head. Claws dig into his scalp, yanking his head back. Hot breath oozes into one ear: “You don’t wish to die, do you?”

Looking back at Pepper’s video feed, Tony bites his tongue. The longer he stares, the more he wants to come through the door in the background and fall into her arms. To feel her arms wrap around his chest and to hear her words against cheeks, words of love, words of reassurance. _It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault_ , he can hear her say. Except either way, it is. _It is my fault, Peps, all of it_.

With either choice, he would never be able to live with himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers at the two feeds. He knows they can’t hear him. He knows he is too far away, and he knows they will never know what happened, but his heart tells him the right answer. And he listens.

“Shoot me.”

Tony can tell the man behind him freezes. “That’s not an option,” the man barks.

“You said choose one or I die,” Tony said, and across his grime- and sweat-strewn face grows a smirk, “Did you even listen to yourself before you spoke?”

The palm holding up his head shoves him tugs him all the way back in his chair. Tony’s eye flood with a bright, burning sensation, infiltrated by the light from a single overhead lamp. “Choosing yourself is not an option,” comes a snarl in his ear. It takes all of Tony’s willpower not to answer with sincerity; giving this man the fear he wants is not an option.

“Then you shouldn’t have said I could. _Obviously_ ,” he points out. “Is English like a second language for you? Because what you said then and what you’re saying now are two different things.”

He hears a grunt before silence falls over the room. Nothing but the faint echoes of breeze can be heard. Tony mentally counts in his head, attempting to determine how much thinking time his captor needs. Or if it is all for show.

His head’s shoved down. The hand retracts from his scalp.

Tony just barely tracks the man’s footprints stalking away from his chair.

“Why are you doing this?” he throws out if only to distract himself from the lingering pains left behind by deep-cutting fingernails.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

Tony raises his brows at nothing in particular, but it seems odd to him that his captor hasn’t launched into a monologue yet. After all, is that not what the bad guys do? From Stane to Killian, they are always itching to get their motives off their chest.

“Why not? I’d like to go out with my curiosity satisfied.”

“Is death really what you want?”

“I’m not choosing.”

The man enters Tony’s line of sight. Between the mask over most his face and the gun hanging from his grip at his side, gleaning any sort of answer requires a concentration Tony cannot spare. Alarm bells blare in his mind. No one wants to die, but sometimes they have to. Tony gulps down his doubt, shuts his eyes, and shifts his shoulders into a straighter posture. He feels a soft breeze, hears a couple footsteps forward, then the gun’s barrel edge pressing into his forehead. His heart hammers into his rib cage.

_Override it. Stay still_ , he thinks.

“So be it,” the man says. There is the click of the safety.

_I’m sorry, Pepper_.

Cold metal detaches from his skin.

_I’m sorry, Rhodey._

Something strikes his skull. Tony’s eyes blur. With two more blows, he’s collapsing into his own lap, curling in like a crumpled piece of paper. He has to remind himself that he chose this, he chose the pain, and that his friends are alive because of it.

Another smash to the head, and the black spots in his vision take him over.


End file.
